Au revoir to tank tops

There’s a weird new bulge under the skin just south of my left collarbone, in a shape rarely found in nature, a half-inch-thick triangle. It’s my newly implanted PowerPort device, through which I'll receive chemotherapy. Nurses will stick a needle through the skin of my chest into this doo-dad whenever they need to give me drugs or take my blood.

A foot-long catheter is threaded from the device to the superior vena cava, a big vein in my heart. The doctor said something about going in through the jugular vein to insert this marvel of technology. My shaky grasp of anatomy combined with years of reading murder mysteries had left me with the impression that any cuts to the jugular mean instant death, but I’m still here to tell the tale.

This morning as I lay on the OR table under conscious sedation (plus a local anesthetic at the implantation site), I could feel the doctor rummaging around inside my chest, as if he were tying lures for fly-fishing or perhaps crocheting a doily. The sensation of little tugs and pushes against my innards wasn’t painful but wasn’t pleasant either. The nurses had tented my head with a sheet so I could see the clock on the wall and some hulking medical apparatuses (apparati?) but couldn’t see my own chest or the image of the surgery on the big TVs over the operating table.

The one fun part was when the anesthesia first hit my system and suddenly the lights on the ceiling started to pulse and gyrate as if they were starring in a big production number on Glee.

A four-inch square of gauze temporarily hides the critter under my clavicle, but I couldn't resist lifting a corner and taking a peek.

Big mistake.

I screeched and jumped back from the mirror. That cyborg look is so not cute. I'm going to need to stock up on turtlenecks.

The schedule of tests and procedures ticks on. Tomorrow: Echocardiogram to get a baseline of how my heart functions so the doctors can monitor whether chemo damages it. Monday: Pelvic ultrasound, hopefully to rule out problems in those gynecological areas that lit up on the PET scan. Still awaiting insurance approval: Bone density scan. Along the same lines as the echocardiogram, its aim is to find out how my bones are doing now, so doctors can gauge how much chemo weakens them.

All my ducks are lining up for me to start chemo soon, probably next week.